Recently listed, high yielding, div well covered by earnings, large stake by Fidelity and Sanyo. Some patent issues outstanding.

Currently 283/7, nav 567, eps 174p and rising.

Any thoughts ?

Take a look at the Goldfinger new stockpicks thread, this has some info re: Wolfson

Although this may appear a completely pointless post check out the URL as it highlights the popularity of the iPod, of which Wolfson provides a key component. Links goes to an animated spoof of the now popular iPod adverts appearing on TV.

http://macboy.com/cartoons/ballmer/index.html

Enjoy.

Slightly old news now but goes a way to explain why this share is one to watch during 2004. Wolfson clearly have a very healthy research and development pipeline that seems capable of pumping out production quality items in time to address specific needs of a growing market. They are spot on with this chip and first to market with it.

The more research I conduct on this company the more upside potential there seems to be. IMHO it's a strong buy candidate but DYOR.

===========================================================================
Dec. 1, 2003--Wolfson Microelectronics plc (LSE:WLF.L), today introduced the WM8753L, a low-power audio subsystem combining Hi-Fi and PCM telephony CODECs on a single chip. The device is targeted for portable digital telephony and audio applications including multi-media phones, personal digital assistants and smart mobile phones with audio mixing capabilities.

The WM8753L contains a stereo analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a stereo digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and a separate mono DAC.

"This unique product incorporates all the features necessary to incorporate and mix MP3, speech, and other audio sources simultaneously during phone calls," said David Milne, CEO of Wolfson. "Its small size, ease of use, low power consumption and efficient design, reduce driver complexity and CPU loading for a new level of functionality in hand-held media devices."

The WM8753L is the only combined PCM/Hi-Fi CODEC on the market that runs at 1.8V (analog) and 1.42V (digital). The device operates at a nominal supply voltage of 2V, although the digital core can operate at voltages down to 1.42V to save power. At 1.8V the CODEC features industry's lowest power consumption in its class with 7mW for stereo playback and less than 6mW for PCM operation.

The device integrates dual interfaces to two differentially connected microphones and includes drivers for speakers, headphone and earpiece. External component requirements are reduced as no separate microphone or headphone amplifiers are required, and cap-less connections can be made to all loads. Advanced on-chip digital signal processing performs tone control, Bass Boost and automatic level control for the microphone or line input through the ADC. The two ADCs may be used to support voice noise cancellation in a partnering DSP, or for stereo recording.

The WM8753L Hi-Fi DAC can operate as a master or a slave, with various master clock frequencies including 12 or 24Mhz for USB devices, 13MHz or 19.2MHz for cellular systems, or standard 256fs rates like 12.288MHz and 24.576MHz. Internal PLLs generate all required clocks for both PCM and Hi-Fi converters. If audio system clocks already exist, the PLLs may be committed to alternative uses.

Price and Availability
The WM8753 is available now in a 7x7mm QFN package, and will shortly be available in a 5x5mm BGA. It is currently priced at $5.74 (U.S.) per 1000 pieces.

About Wolfson Microelectronics:Wolfson Microelectronics plc (LSE: WLF.L) is an award winning, fabless semiconductor company based in Edinburgh, UK. Wolfson develops and markets high performance mixed signal semiconductors for multimedia and communications applications worldwide. The company currently has sales offices in the USA, Japan, China and Taiwan, with a further office planned in Korea early in 2004. For further information please contact: sales@wolfsonmicro.com
For more information contact:
Wolfson Microelectronics plc, Bernard Terrace, Edinburgh, EH8 9NX, United Kingdom, Tel: +44 (0) 131 272 7000, Fax: +44 (0) 131 272 7001
=============================================================================

Although the latest stats for shopping mall visitors during the weekend before Xmas are down as compared to the same weekend last year, it is still good news for sales of electrical goods containing Wolfson chips (DVDs, Games consoles, mp3 players etc). The reason being that a significant proportion of people are now preferring to buy such items online. It will only be after Xmas that we find out the real purchasing stats for Wolfson related items and they are going to be very positive.

From browsing stores online and looking at what's in stock it is clear that Wolfson related items are going like hot cakes e.g. iPods. Check this out yourself as many retailers now provide this valuable information when you attempt to source an item (items in-stock, number of days to next delivery and so on).

Expect bumper sales figures very soon from Wolfson that will significantly exceed analysts pencilled in figures for this quarter.

If you haven't bought into this company then it isn't too late. The price has just broken through the all important 300p barrier and there is very strong evidence of corporate investors out again in force buying for the upside, there is a buying confidence that suggests it has a long way to go up as well as solid support for 290p on the downside.

DYOR of course but to re-itterate this share is a strong buy for a balanced portfolio in 2004.

$5.74 per 1000 pieces? that doesn't seem like a lot of money to me. Can anyone explain? Do ARM operate on similar terms?

It means a sample batch of 1000 at $5.74 a piece. Discounts will apply if you want to buy more e.g. 10,000 units.

To clarify: ARM are a pure IP play selling licences to others who then exploit their IP, most of ARMs revenue is linked to the volume of units sold by the licencee. The bad news is that you don't get as much revenue (margin) as you would if you sold the actual chip since you are taking a much reduced risk by just providing the IP that someone else has to build into a chip.

Wolfson on the otherhand are a so called "fabless" chip manufacturer. They produce the chips that others buy and integrate into their products e.g. the iPod, Xbox and a raft of DVD players all contain Wolfson chips. They don't have any manufacturing facilities of their own, instead they outsource the actual chip production to whoever fits the bill. Wolfson in this capacity are like project managers, and the great news is they are very good at it. Outsourcing the chip production, but taking an active role in the process, avoids the expense of having to build a chip foundry whilst keeping a keen eye on costs and quality (defect rates). Chip foundrys are really just commodities these days, unless you are Intel it doesn't really differentiate you if you own one. So, by not having to make the chips means they can spend all their cash and intellectual horsepower on smarter chip designs that clients are demanding.

Wolfson's core expertise is in mixed signal chips, the ones that have both an analogue and digital component such as analogue to digital converters, ARM is a pure digital chip designer and their speciality is in low powered RISC microprocessor design. Wolfson and ARM are both recognised globally for their particular design skills.

In terms of margins, because Wolfson sells the chip rather than just the design they take a greater risk and so can charge a premium compared to ARM.

Their product pipeline is very healthy which is good news if you are a shareholder.

At present market cap levels it is likely that the Wolfson will enter the FTSE 250 index at it's next review date. Wolfson is already a member of the techMARK All-Share index along with companies like ARM. Bit of an early call this one I know, but take advantage of this conclusion before all the institutions do in the New Year :-)

Institutions holding funds whose remit is to track the FTSE 250 index will be forced buyers. I don't think any of them will mind being forced into buying Wolfson given the excellent prospects it holds as outlined in other original research. Many of them appear to be Christmas shopping already looking through recent trades.

DYOR of course.

From the BBC today, mentions iPod sales (I've cut down the article for brevity)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3345663.stm

=====
Christmas sales 'up on last year'


Christmas shoppers on London's Oxford Street
Christmas sales figures will be better than last year but the overall picture is patchy, retail analysts have said.
While clothing stores have had a tough time, bumper sales for electrical goods retailers and supermarkets will push 2003's figures above 2002, they say.

Yet analysts said the rate of the sales growth should be down this year at 2%, compared to last year's 5% to 6%.

The warm autumn has been blamed for the reduced clothing sales, while digital goods have been this year's must have.


Best sellers

Items such as cut price DVD players, LED and plasma televisions, and Apple's i-Pod personal music player have been among the best sellers.

Despite all the talk of doom and gloom, this year hasn't actually been that bad

Richard Parks, retail analyst

For the supermarkets, analysts say consumers appear to be spending more than ever on their food and drink, and predict excellent Christmas trading figures for the big players such as Tesco and Asda.

Bryan Roberts from analysts M+M Planet Retail, said: "Whether Christmas 2003 is good or bad depends on which sector you are talking about - it is pretty patchy out there.

"Electrical retailers and supermarkets seem to be doing very well, but some of the clothing retailers appear to be suffering," he said.

"You can tell this from some pretty steep reductions at stores such as Marks & Spencer and French Connection.
=====

Does anyone have an upto date list of products that contain a Wolfson chip? We know of the big name products such as the iPod and Xbox but what about the following non-exhaustive categories:

Mobile phones: ???
Games consoles: Xbox
Music consoles: iPod
DVD players: ???
Digital cameras: ???
Adsl modems: ???
PDAs: ???
Digital set top boxes: ???

If you look at their website www.wolfson.com you can work out the category of product which would use their chips e.g. the WM8199 chip is obviously aimed at digital camera manufacturers, but they don't mention any specific products per se.

Thanks.

Interesting article today on page 9 of the FT, "All of you music, all of the time. Apple's iPod is the must-have gadget that has changed the music industry." Full article is all on the front page of FT online.

Snippets of relevance to Wolfson share holders (because the iPod contains an essential piece of technology from Wolfson):

"Since Apple launched the original iPod, more than 1m units have been shipped. In the quarter ending September 27, Apple shipped 336,000 iPod units, more than twice as many as in the same period the previous year."

"About 7 per cent, or $121m (72m), of Apple's $1.7bn in fiscal fourth- quarter revenue came from the iPod."

"The success of the iPod, which works with both Apple Macs and Windows-based personal computers, has drawn comparisons with Sony's Walkman cassette player, launched in 1979, which also helped redefine the music industry.

Like other Apple products, the iPod inspires fiercely loyal followers - which perhaps explains why rival machines from Dell Computer, Rio and Creative Technologies among others have had little impact so far on iPod sales."

In fact, the demand for iPods has outstripped supply at times and shortages were reported in some markets in the run-up to Christmas."

=====

So, the picture is clear. Wolfson's mixed signal chips, the ones that make the sounds you hear when you play your iPod, are selling like hot cakes. Wouldn't be surprised if the quarterly iPod sales leading up to year end break through 500k barrier and for all of 2003 reach 1m units. Fantastic news for Wolfson share holders as this means enhanced turnover and profit above that forecast in the IPO prospectus.

It's not just the iPod though, there are a suite of products that use Wolfson technology each one contributing to turnover and profit.

Strong buy candidate for 2004 but DYOR.

From the "thisislondon" website. Good news for Wolfson since they make the chips that produce the sounds.

=======
Coming very soon, the mini iPod
By Richard Sparham, Daily Mail
30 December 2003
It was the must-have Christmas gift which put a large dent in many festive budgets.

But parents who forked out up to 400 for Apple's iPod - a mobile digital jukebox - will be surprised to learn that a bargain-priced mini-version is set to be unveiled only next week.

The smaller iPod will cost less than a quarter as much as the cheapest current version, which can store 2,500 music tracks.

But it will still be able to hold 800 songs, which users can download from music websites or transfer from their CD collections.

Current versions of the iPod have been on sale from around 250 to 400 for the top-of-the-range model, which can hold 10,000 songs.

Now industry analysts expect Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs to unveil the smaller iPods at the Macworld event in San Francisco next week.

In addition to the mini-iPods, expected to cost 63, Apple will introduce different coloured cases from the standard white design.

The iPod's popularity has been boosted by its appearance as the ultimate celebrity gadget. A-list owners include the Beckhams, Robbie Williams, Ronan Keating and David Bowie.

As a result, it has been a runaway success throughout the world, with sales topping the million mark.

Many UK stores ran out of stocks as demand grew during the Christmas rush. Some resorted to taking orders for the post-Christmas period, even though Apple said it was working flat out to meet demand and had shipped more than

1.3million of the gadgets by October 2003.

Apple senior vice-president Ron Johnson said an iPod was being sold somewhere in the world every ten minutes in the run-up to Christmas. The iPod, which can also store photographs and other types of file, has had a good year in 2003, with two top technology magazines voting it one of the country's favourite bits of consumer technology.

In a recent Stuff magazine poll, the iPod was voted best gadget of the year.

Key information from the article - 730,000 iPods sold during Q4 with everyone of them containing a Wolfson DAC chip, furthermore it doesn't appear that Apple intend to see iPod sales go down during the next quarter either. Wolfson will be reporting bumper year end results early Feb, definitely one to watch.

==========================
SAN FRANCISCO (AFX) -- Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a smaller
version of the company's popular IPod personal music player during a speech at
the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco Tuesday.
The $249 digital music player is about half the size of the company's earlier
players. It can hold 1,000 songs, the same as older models. The price is $50
less than Apple's previously lowest priced model.
The price tag proved to be a surprise given industry speculation that the new
IPod would cost only $100. By comparison, Dell's 15-gigabyte Dell DJ, which
holds nearly four times as many songs, costs $224.
Apple also introduced a new 15 gigabyte version of its larger player Tuesday
priced at $299.
The new mini players work with both Apple's Mac computers and PCs running the
Microsoft Windows operating system.
Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., sold 730,000 IPods during the December
quarter, Jobs said.
Apple shares rose 13 to $22.30 in afternoon trading.
Earlier Jobs said Apple has sold 30 million songs though its ITunes service. The
service now offers 500,000 songs at 99 cents a download. Jobs cited figures from
SoundScan that showed Apple holding 70 percent of the legal song-downloading
market
Competitors in the song downloading business include Dell, Wal-Mart and Roxio's
Napster site.
This story was supplied by CBSMarketWatch.

Presumably, Wolfson chips will be core to the HP range of iPod clones if they are just re-designing the packaging?

====
FRONT PAGE - COMPANIES & MARKETS: Apple cuts surprise iPod deal with HP
By Tom Foremski in San Francisco and Scott Morrison in Las Vegas
Financial Times; Jan 09, 2004



Apple Computer yesterday surprised the industry by saying it would license its leading iPod digital music technology to Hewlett-Packard, the world's second largest computer company.

HP will also bundle Apple's iTunes music software and online music store with its personal computers, potentially further boosting Apple's lead in online music sales.

The two groups declined to comment on the financial details of the alliance, but people close to the companies said there was a revenue-sharing arrangement.

Apple has traditionally declined to license its core technologies, only to lose market lead to rivals.

Carly Fiorina, HP chief executive, said: "We explored a range of alternatives to deliver a great digital music experience and concluded Apple's iPod music player and iTunes music service were the best by far."

The HP alliance is a boost to Apple's digital rights management technology that helps protect music from piracy by restricting the number of copies digital music buyers can make.

The HP music player will be introduced this summer and will look different from the Apple device. Apple's entry level iPod costs $299 (234) and stores 3,700 songs.
====

imho set to break 400p before figs

Results for Apple and Intel. Relevance to Wolfson being that the former include the official iPod sales Q4, the latter because Intel is a bell weather for the chip designers/manufacturers. On both accounts it is good news.

Wolfson results will be announced around 17th Feb, time to top up!

================
SAN FRANCISCO (AFX) -- Apple Computer on Wednesday reported a first-quarter
net profit of $63 million, reversing an $8 million loss in the same period a
year ago. Revenue totaled $2 billion, a 36-percent rise over the $1.47 billion
in sales it had in last year's first quarter. On a per-share basis, Apple earned
17 cents, to top estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call who
forecasted a profit of 15 cents a share. Apple said it recorded an after-tax
investment of $3 million, which boosted earning by a penny a share. Apple said
it shipped 829,000 Macintosh computers and 733,000 iPod digital music players in
the period ended Dec. 27.
This story was supplied by CBSMarketWatch. For further information see
www.cbsmarketwatch.com.
================
Intel Q4 earns 33c, sales $8.74 bln (4:25 PM ET) SAN FRANCISCO (AFX) --
Intel reported fourth-quarter net income of $2.2 billion, or 33 cents a share,
and revenue of $8.74 billion. Excluding an unexpected tax benefit of 6 cents a
share, Intel earned 27 cents a share, two cents better than most analysts
expected. Also, analysts expected sales of $8.64 billion, according to Reuters
Research.

Very good analyst briefing session.

Interview with Dr. David Milne, Chief Executive Officer January 16, 2004 - WallStreetReporter.

http://www.wallstreetreporter.com/linked/WolfsonMicroelectronics.html

Wolfson is set for a breakout from its current narrow trading range. The global view of chip sales is +ve as evidenced by sales of manufacturing equipment so the breakout direction is very clear i.e. UP. Trading results for 2003 are set to be released, one to watch.

========
Sales of semiconductor making kit rose in 2003 for the first time in three years

Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment totaled 22.1 bln usd in 2003, up 11.9 pct from the previous year, the first increase in three years, data issued by Japanese and international industry associations showed.

But that is still less than half the peak of 47.7 bln usd in 2000.

The Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan and Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International attributed the increase in 2003 to stepped up investment spending by chipmakers to meet growing demand, particularly from manufacturers of digital household appliances.

By market, South Korea accounted for the largest sales increase of 89.4 pct to 3.2 bln usd. Sales in Japan jumped 42.3 pct to 5.5 bln usd, and in Europe by 21.7 pct to 2.6 bln.

But sales in North America declined by 20.1 pct and in Taiwan by 17.1 pct.

RNS Number:5054V
Wolfson Microelectronics PLC
17 February 2004




Wolfson Microelectronics plc

Notification of Preliminary Results


The Directors of Wolfson Microelectronics plc (LSE: WLF) will be announcing the
Group's results for the full year ended 31 December 2003 on Monday, 1 March
2004.


David Milne, Chief Executive Officer and George Elliott, Chief Financial Officer
of Wolfson will be hosting a presentation on the day at 0900 to analysts at The
Lincoln Centre, 18 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3ED.


Enquiries:


Brunswick
Tom Buchanan, Harry Chathli +44 207 404 5959

LONDON (AFX) - Wolfson Microelectronics PLC, a mixed-signal semiconductor
company that produces proprietary high performance integrated circuits, reported
robust maiden full year results for the 12 months ended Dec 31 2003.
Pretax profit increased to 12.5 mln usd from 3.6 mln usd a year earlier on
turnover of 75.7 mln usd, up from 33.7 mln.
The company said it has entered the new year with a strong backlog of orders
and healthy demand for its products. "We anticipate continued growth in the
first half of 2004 in all of our product lines (consumer audio, portable and
digital imaging) with the strongest growth forecast in the portable sector."
The board said this growth pattern will result in higher average selling
prices and improved gross margin, as well as turnover in the seasonally weak
first half "comfortably ahead" of the turnover for the second half of 2003.
Wolfson has added six new products since the IPO and its new product
pipeline is the largest in the company's history. The board said recently
announced products are targeted at exciting opportunities in audio power
amplification and multimedia mobile phones. It expects to introduce a total of
over 25 new products in 2004.
Chief executive David Milne said the growth of the consumer electronic
product market is being driven by products such as digital cameras, DVD players,
MP3 players, PDAs and smart handheld devices.
He said that, according to industry analysts their combined compound annual
growth rate is in excess of 25 pct. The diversity of products being developed
gives the company many sales opportunities and at the end of the year, the
company had over 200 design wins for its components.
Growth is also being driven by the increased number of products in the
group's portfolio. Over 9 mln usd was invested in R&D in 2003.
The company said it intends to retain all future earnings for investment in
development and expansion of the business and does not currently expect to pay a
dividend for the foreseeable future.